On Stanley's reciprocity theorem for rational cones

Matthias Beck, Mike Develin

Published 2004-09-28, updated 2005-08-04Version 3

We give a short, self-contained proof of Stanley's reciprocity theorem for a rational cone K \subset R^d. Namely, let sigma_K (x) = sum_{m \in K \cap Z^d} x^m. Then sigma_K (x) and sigma_int(K) (x) are rational functions which satisfy the identity sigma_K (1/x) = (-1)^d sigma_int(K) (x). A corollary of Stanley's theorem is the Ehrhart-Macdonald reciprocity theorem for the lattice-point enumerator of rational polytopes. A distinguishing feature of our proof is that it uses neither the shelling of a polyhedron nor the concept of finite additive measures. The proof follows from elementary techniques in contour integration.